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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23669011">pass the kerosene</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinabug/pseuds/zinabug'>zinabug</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mechanisms (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(?) idk there's some blood, Arson, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, lots of stuff about fire, pretty sure this is a character study</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:14:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23669011</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinabug/pseuds/zinabug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>smoke and fire and blood and oil- a character study of one Mx. Ashes O'reilly </p><p>title from a song of the same name by the peculiar pretzelman</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>pass the kerosene</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>Smoke and fire and blood and oil. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ashes O’reilly always smells of smoke and gasoline. Their coat tails are scorched, shirt smeared with ash. They play with fire and death like it’s a toy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they emerge from the clouds of smoke and fire, and smile, firelight reflecting off their eyes, their grin is full of madness and joy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When you sit next to them in some run-down bar smelling of betrayal, they’ll smile and are just as likely to offer you a cigarette and a tale as drop a match in your drink. They are a gambling person, loaded dice and cards up sleeves and stakes higher than heaven. And if you lose, you’re going straight to hell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything about them screams fire, dark hair with red tips and and red feather earrings with gold beads that would flicker and dance in the slightest breeze. Their coat flickered like a trail of smoke. Deep red lipstick and splattered blood against dark skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their smiles mean so many things. A sadistic grin of joy while striding through an inferno, a slight sideways smile through a cloud of cigarette smoke that could mean anything cunning or tender. A smile of cold fury above a flickering flame or knife blade. A sad, quiet grin over creaking breaths. A rare slight smile, genuinely happy, when they are caught in the joy of storytelling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And they tell stories, incredible ones, on their own or with the mechanisms, singing or speaking. Their voice is beautiful, everyone who meets them agrees. It’s not at all stained by the smoke they surround themself with. They play a bass guitar, heavy and deep. The music echoes under the singing and other instruments like a heartbeat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ashes exhales a breath, and smoke curls between their lips, into the sky. They didn’t take a drag on the cigarette crumbling to ash on the floor, their own lungs produced it, a memory of death in fire and smoke. Gears click and whirr with each breath they take. Their lungs are stained with oil and soot, delicate clockwork rattling in their chest. If you got close enough without taking a knife to your own chest you could hear it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once, in some far off fight, they took a bullet and spent their last minutes coughing up bloody gears stained with oil. They got back up of course, they always do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They did not carry the weight of millennia as heavily as the others. It was there, deep in their eyes and their thousand-yard stare into a glass of whiskey. You could see it in them, a soul so much older than a young body. It was hidden under fire. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They are a killer, an arsonist, and they carry it with pride. They are completely comfortable with the knife they spin casually in their hand, with the matches and lighters tucked into their clothes.  The smell of smoke and gasoline will linger in a room long after they are gone, and your world will burn. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ain't enough gasoline to burn down a whole planet - </span>
  </em>
  <span>words spoken long, long ago in their past. It was a lie, and the world burned, Ashes avenging their own death with the death of thousands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wherever they went, they found themself head of criminals. Hades sat on their throne and quietly ruled the dead, pulling strings around the living. They puppeteered the puppeteer, and lit the puppets on fire when they were done with them. Ashes sat in some dimly lit bar and watched as murderers and thieves played cards for their lives. The game wasn’t fair. It was never fair. Ashes would always win. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Your dice may be loaded but they melt in the heat. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Ashes tosses a handful of dice onto the metal table and watches them melt. Everything around them is in flames, playing cards going up in small puffs of smoke and ash. Their coat is on fire, but they just stand there in front of their ruined throne as bottles explode behind the bar. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Smoke and fire and blood and oil, Ashes O’reilly. </span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
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